Reputation
by WeeLittleBeastie
Summary: Yondu Udonta has a reputation. He's a space pirate, a criminal badass with a magical arrow and a short temper and a motley mismatched crew of criminal elite who are definitely not worried over the loss of their youngest crew member.


Yondu Udonta has a reputation. He's a space pirate, a criminal badass with a magical arrow and a short temper and a motley mismatched crew of criminal elite who are definitely not worried over the loss of their youngest crew member.

And Yondu is _definitely_ not wearing a hole in the bridge deck pacing back and forth while his harried first mate runs _another_ long-range scan to look for Peter's bio signature. Because that would not be good for his reputation.

Kraglin, for his part, is doing a great job of giving his captain the silent treatment without actually being insubordinate. He doesn't need to say anything and he knows it; a pointed glare, a louder-than-average sigh. The whole crew is in on it and he doesn't blame them one bit because he's silently berating himself too. No matter how stupid it might have been to end up… canoodling… with the Gramosian duchess, and no matter how much the loss of Gramos as a trade port had impacted their bottom line as a result, a good Ravager captain never sent a man into the field without backup. Except that he had, and worse, he'd sent a _boy_ into the field without backup, a boy who happened to be an absolute magnet for trouble.

The console beeps and Kraglin purses his lips, adjusts a few knobs, presses another button, starts another scan. He hasn't left those scanners since the kid officially went missing three days ago. And Yondu hasn't missed the parade of non-bridge crew members who appear steadily to check and see if they've found Peter yet. For a bunch of criminals they sure are soft for the boy. Quill has a way of making even the hardest men in the galaxy feel like protective siblings and Gods only know he needs protecting, mostly from himself.

Time wears on, Yondu continues to pace, occasionally letting his fingers drift to the yaka arrow on his belt like a reassuring friend. _We'll find him, he's out there, he's still alive, he has to be._

It's not like they expected it to be a tough mission. The contact was someone Yondu knew well, a former member of his crew. Quill was to take an m-ship to the planet's surface, retrieve the artifact from the contact, and come straight back. And if it had set off tiny alarm bells in Yondu's brain when the contact asked to take him for a drink first, he'd done his best to ignore them. Quill was 12 hours late for his rendezvous when they'd found the contact, slumped against an alley wall outside a seedy bar with a Kree dagger buried in his chest. Peter and the artifact were nowhere to be found.

If he's in the hands of the Kree, Yondu shudders to think what state they'll find him in. But they _will_ find him, and he will be alive, or the Centaurian will find a way to bring him back just so he can kill him himself.

He jumps when the console beeps. There's a blob on the radar, impossibly far from them, barely within range of their deep-space scanners, but there, and alive, and suddenly the bridge is a whirlwind of activity. Yondu leaps into action, ordering the engines to max while Kraglin punches in coordinates and the rest of the Ravagers run for the armory or the med bay for whatever they think they're going to need. "Hang on boy," Yondu says quietly, his fingers hovering once more near his yaka arrow and his eyes on the radar blip. "Family's comin' for ya."

They expect to go in guns blazing, if the entire crew armed to the teeth is anything to go by. They're expecting a prison planet or a giant abandoned warehouse or one of countless other cliche villain lairs to infiltrate and rescue their boy.

What they get is an abysmally tiny escape vessel constructed from a hodge-podge of parts from different races, and a single lifesign on board. The video communication is shaky, but Peter's cheeky trademark grin is unmistakable even under a crusted mask of alien blood. "Took you long enough," he says to Yondu, and the Centaurian smiles, but his anxiety ratchets up another notch because Peter's struggling too much to breathe and his voice is thin and strained. One arm is clamped across his midsection, the other hangs useless by his side, the shoulder strangely lumpy and deformed. He's listing to one side even as he grins at them and the Captain knows they need to get him on board as soon as possible.

He sends a crewman to take an m-ship and tow the little pod back to the hangar but he keeps Peter on the display. Keep him awake, keep him talking, he thinks. "Boy you've got the worst kinda nose for trouble."

"Not my fault," Quill breathes, chuckling and then wincing as the sound catches in his throat. Yondu guesses he's been nearly three days without water and that's just one more concerning bullet on a lengthening list. "Bunch of bandit assholes… jumped us in the bar. Dragged Harris out back and…" He swallows, casts his eyes down for a moment. The sound of metal hitting metal as the m-ship clamps onto the pod and a jolt as it fires engines, and Peter moans at the movement, slumping heavily to one side. Yondu barely catches the mumbled "S'ry" before he's out of his chair and off the bridge, sprinting for the hangar with his leather coat flapping behind.

The m-ship deposits the pod as softly as possible on the hangar deck and the Centaurian all but yanks the door off trying to get it open. Quill is slumped over the control panel, still conscious but only just. "Quill? Peter answer me." At the captain's voice the kid stirs a little, moans, and mutters something that sounds like "unfair."

Yondu gently leans Peter back and then picks him up, careful to jarr him as little as possible. "What's unfair, boy?"

"Why'd I g'tta be the piñata at my own birthday?" He laughs, gasps, and coughs, and Yondu doesn't miss the spray of red that hits his chin.

"Kraglin get this tub to the nearest medical facility fast as she'll go," he half-shouts into the intercom on his way to the med bay.

He's hurting badly, but even grasping the fraying edges of consciousness Peter is trying for unshakable bravado and Yondu is both proud and terrified and more than a little angry about it. Their ship surgeon has brushed up as much as he can on Terran biology, but Quill isn't entirely Terran, and that complicates things. It's taken years of trial and error to find out what medications he can safely take, which can only be given in miniscule doses, which to avoid. They have an entire book of notes taken carefully through every injury or illness the boy has suffered and the surgeon pores over them as quickly as he can while Yondu cuts Peter out of his tattered shirt and swears rather loudly at what's beneath it.

His entire chest is a mosaic of bruising, like he's been stomped on repeatedly. Bone shifts under the skin with every laboured breath. One side of his chest isn't rising properly, stuttering and jumping as he inhales and he's panting like he can't get enough air. His back, when Yondu is able to turn him onto his side (and this is complicated because his shoulder has been ripped from the socket and twisted so badly the surgeon is actually surprised it's still attached), is crosshatched with lash marks that are still oozing blood. Several of them are inflamed already and look infected. There are cuts running the length of his torso, expertly made with a heated blade. Yondu's empathic abilities are limited where the kid is concerned, especially so because of whatever part of him is not Terran, but he can feel white-hot agony and burning fever and _please make it stop_ rebounding across his link with Peter and it makes him ache.

He can feel the engines straining and thanks whatever gods are listening that they're in a quadrant with a decent medical facility. "Just gotta hang on a little longer, kid," he murmurs, resting one hand on Peter's blazing forehead.

Quill mumbles something and turns into the touch. Yondu's pretty sure it's something along the lines of "you owe me a cake" and he chuckles. The ship slows and then stops. Moments later he hears a medical transport team coming up the corridor and he moves aside to let them work. The med bay goes from silent save the wheezing of the youngest Ravager to a flurry of activity and medical jargon and Peter disappears behind a wall of white-clad Xandarian medical staff. The Centaurian isn't really familiar with the terminology but he does catch pneumothorax and internal bleeding and his blood boils. He'd like nothing more than to find the bastards that kidnapped Peter and tear them to pieces, fill them full of pretty holes with his arrow. Instead, when one of the Xandarians asks if he's the boy's guardian he nods, and when they load him onto a stretcher and carry him out to the transport, he follows.

In the end it's a close thing. Peter's other lung collapses on the way to the medical facility as his chest cavity fills with blood from a ruptured spleen. After the surgery to remove it they put him on a ventilator to give his lungs a break while they reinflate. The wounds on his back are cleaned, smeared with a salve to make them heal faster, and bandaged. They set and wrap his ribs and shoulder, load him up with painkillers, and leave him to rest with Yondu parked in a chair beside his bed.

The mechanical hiss of the ventilator is the only sound in the room for a long time. The Centaurian takes some of that time to stew in guilt, because if he hadn't made a brash angry decision, a member of his crew wouldn't be half-dead in a Xandarian medical facility. He owes Peter an apology. "Sorry kid," he murmurs, placing a hand on the boy's forehead again. Eight years Quill's been on his crew, and if he's being honest he can't, and doesn't wish to, imagine the ship without him. Pain in the ass that he is, he's also an integral part of the crew, and they've all grudgingly grown fond of him. "We'll fix it," he whispers, "I got a gift for the bastards that took you. Make some pretty new holes in their heads once you're back on your feet."

He's not sure when he falls asleep but he wakes up pretty quick when he catches an elbow in the face.

"Quill!" The boy is choking, clawing at the ventilator mask. There's frantic beeping coming from machines on the wall and running footsteps from down the hall. Yondu grabs the boy's upper arms gently but firmly. "Look at me boy!" he says, and Peter's frantic, fever-bright eyes lock onto his face. "Good, good boy. Listen to me, you got banged up pretty good, because you're a damned trouble magnet and I'm a damned idiot and sent you off on your own. You'll live, but right now you need to cool it and let your body heal. Got it?"

Slowly, Peter nods, and Yondu lets go of his arms and replaces his hand on the boy's forehead, smiling a little as he turns into the touch. Yondu's not the hugging sort, hasn't been for a lot of years, but this contact, his hand on Peter's forehead, this he can do for him, has always done for him. He might be a hardass, but at the end of the day Yondu's crew is his family, the only one he's got left. Maybe sometimes he forgets that and the universe sends him a painful reminder.

It takes him a moment to notice the medical staff in the doorway, just watching the interaction. One of the nurses might be crying. He should be embarrassed, or worried that his reputation is suffering, but right now he's just focused on Peter. The boy is watching him with half-lidded eyes, and there's a look of utter trust on his face he probably doesn't deserve. _Should never have sent him alone…_

Never mind, there's time for that later. For now, the Centaurian hums a few bars from Moonage Daydream until Quill's eyes drift shut and he relaxes back into the pillows. Yondu's thumb traces a circle on Peter's brow. "Happy Birthday kid."

The vent comes out the next day, but it takes three more before Peter's well enough to leave the medical facility, with strict orders to recover in bed and a Captain that'll make sure he does exactly that. Quill protests; he's determined to earn his keep, and Yondu assures him that he'll be making up for lost time as soon as he feels better, which seems to bolster the kid's mood and make him more accepting of the order for bed rest.

Still, Yondu isn't surprised when he finds Peter the very same day, leaning heavily against the wall in the corridor near the Captain's quarters and plastered with sweat. Suppressing the desire to yell at the idiot is difficult, but somehow the Centaurian manages and instead he helps Quill the rest of the way to his rooms and sits him down in a chair. "What the fresh Hell did you think you were doing?" he asks him, his voice taking on an edge reserved for mutinies and gross insubordination, because dammit doesn't this kid have an ounce of self-preservation?

Peter looks appropriately sheepish. "I wanted to speak to you. About… what happened. I'm sorry I got beat up so badly."

He's taken aback, mildly amused, mostly angry but at himself, not the kid. "Not you who's needing to apologize," he says. "No hang on," and holds up a hand, because Quill's about to protest in some other self-deprecating fashion and he doesn't think he can take it. "I'm the one who sent you down there without any backup. Ravagers are never alone. That's my failing. I owe you a sorry and I promise they will pay for what they did to you."

"They did, don't worry." Peter's expression is dark. Yondu doesn't press but he makes a note to tell Kraglin to stop searching for the rest of that vessel; there's no need it seems.

"Right. You need to go back to bed," the Captain stands, reaches for his young charge but Peter shrinks back a little and averts his eyes. "What?"

"I uh… if it's not… is it alright if I sleep here? Just one night. I'll stay in the chair, I won't bother you." He's wringing his hands a little frantically. "It's just, I've had nightmares, and I don't want to be alone."

Yondu just watches him for a moment, lost for words. Peter doesn't _do_ vulnerable and to see him raw like this... it doesn't feel right.

The kid, of course, takes that as a bad sign and backpedals. "I mean of course not, I'm sorry. That would be… I'll just…"

"Quill."

"It was a stupid…"

"Quill!"

"Yes sir?"

"Shut up." Peter blinks, and Yondu shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "I'm not going to make you sleep in the chair. Your luck, you'll pull out your stitches or collapse another lung falling _out_ of the chair and we'll have to drag your ass all the way back to Xandarian space." Quill smiles a little, and when the captain offers him help, he takes it without complaint.

Sometime during the night, Yondu wakes to a moan from his new bunkmate. Peter's thrashing in his sleep, muttering. Without waking him, the Centaurian places a hand on his forehead, humming one of the melodies from his tape until the boy settles again, snoring softly.

Yondu Udonta has a reputation. He's a space pirate, a criminal badass with a magical arrow and a short temper. He's also a fool with a soft spot for a boy he was supposed to collect and deliver but decided to keep. And right now, in the dark and the quiet and feeling a sense of family he hasn't felt for almost a century, he's really, really glad he did.


End file.
